The Unauthorized Explanation of The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner

It was somewhere around 2004 that I first listened to The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. I’ve been waiting 13 years to get my hands on a vinyl pressing of that album, but the wait is over! I’m not sure what exactly it is about the album I love so much. The music, the lyrics, the vocal harmonies, the loose, but somehow moving story arc? Maybe it’s just an overall vibe or maybe it’s the finality. It was the last Ben Folds Five album before they broke up in 1999 and it seems very clear that they knew what they were doing. Much like Abbey Road and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Reinhold Messner is the swan song that fans in 1999 deserved, but not the one they needed. I think Reinhold is largely misunderstood by fans and critics alike. My sister Kayleigh and I have had long discussions about this album and we believe there to be a definitive story being told and I think that the story is covered equally in words and in music. The original intention was to create one massive song that ebbed and flowed throughout the album and it’s easy to hear what could have been. There is a glue that holds the album together, a moody feeling that not even the upbeat single Army can seem to shake. I believe this is because the narrator is dying. While I have a theory that includes tracks that were originally intended for this album, I’ve decided to leave them out of this post because they aren’t ACTUALLY on the album. The album opens up with the narrator unintentionally falling asleep, due to narcolepsy. I don’t think that they actually have narcolepsy, I believe the character is looking back and realizing how mindlessly they had stumbled through their life up to this point. They didn’t take advantage of the opportunities and relationships they had and might as well had been asleep the whole time. This transitions to a failed relationship suite. Don’t Change Your Plans, Mess, and Magic tell the story of a doomed relationship, the baggage of past relationships hurting new relationships, and the guilt felt and later acceptance after a loved one commits suicide. We wake up in a Hospital Room where the narrator tells us that their doctor revealed some bad news. From here, the narrator continues to reflect on their regretful life. He talks about his experience joining the army after failing out of school. He talks about joining a band and getting kicked out, working in fast food, failed marriages, and other disappointments. The song ends with a line about the character’s redneck past and then the very next song “Your Redneck Past” carries on that thought. I think that the narrator is ashamed of where they came from and is disappointed that they never got out. No matter how hard he tried to cover it up and move on, his redneck past kept nipped at his heels. He mentions getting some books on tape to learn about holes in space, which is important because the next song is an actual voice message left by Folds’ father where he talks about John Glenn’s space journey and how you lose muscle mass in space. This message is quite an odd rambling and I wonder if its use was meant to portray a parent aging and slowly losing their mind to dementia. Especially considering a specific lyric in the next song Regrets. If nothing else has convinced you so far, this song will. How could this not be about somebody regretting their life? There are a lot of call backs to the other songs too. It starts with “I thought about…” just like Army. He mentions wishing he’d traveled, but never did. He talks about all the great ideas he had, but his fear of failure held him back (think of the band or the screenplay from Army or the girlfriend he let slip away in Don’t Change Your Plans). The big line to me is “I never visited my grandma even once when she was sick before she died. So I don’t blame you if you never come to see me here again.” That sounds an awful lot like a man on his deathbed. It also ties into the thought that he neglected to visit his grandma, just like he neglected to visit his senile father who left the voice message earlier. Jane might seem out of place at first, but imagine if the narrator had a daughter or a friend named Jane. What would he say to them before he died? He’d probably tell them “It’s your life, you can decorate it as you like.” Or “Don’t try to see yourself the way that others do, it’s no use.” The final song, Lullabye, is an allegory for the narrator’s death. The album opens up with Narcolepsy and ends with Lullabye. The great sleep of death closes the story of a man who slept through his life. (To be clear, Kayleigh Brunacini came up with a lot of this explanation, I agreed with it, fleshed it out, and wrote it down.)